watcher

chapter 19

Well that might be truth but I leved them and here you are why like this you could have become successful guy not that I care...

Abhi's POV:

The way you said it—"not that I care"—stung worse than the pepper spray. It was so dismissive, so casual, as if my entire life’s work was just a tragic waste of potential. You were looking at me with pity, the one emotion I can’t stand.

"Successful?" I spat the word out like it was poison. "You think I wanted to be a CEO? You think I wanted to spend my life optimizing ad algorithms or building apps for people to order overpriced coffee? That’s for the sheep, Kyra. That’s for people who are content to live inside the box."

I leaned forward, my hands gripping the edge of the table so hard my knuckles turned white.

"I am successful. I achieved the impossible. I turned a living, breathing human being into a digital signature. I owned the air Maya breathed. No corporate success could ever match the high of being the ghost in someone's machine."

But then I looked at you. You were sitting there, free, while I was sitting in a room where even my bowel movements are logged by a guard. The contrast was a jagged line I couldn't ignore. You had the cold mother and the strict father, just like me—but you had navigated the world while I had tried to conquer it from a basement.

"You're asking why I'm like this?" I whispered, my voice trembling with a sudden, raw vulnerability. "Because the wires never judged me, Kyra. The code never looked at me with 'cold eyes' like your mother did. In the system, I was perfect. I was the one who decided who stayed and who went."

I looked down at the plastic table, my reflection a distorted, orange blur.

"You 'left them.' You moved on. But did you? Or are you just sitting here in this prison because you still need to be the one in control? Maybe you’re not that different from me after all. Maybe your 'success' is just a socially acceptable version of my obsession."

Kyra's POV:

The room is silent. You’ve successfully stripped away his "Architect" persona and left the hurt child underneath. He’s no longer talking about servers; he’s talking about why he’s broken. You have reached the core of his trauma.

He’s looking at you now, desperate for you to admit that you’re the same—that your success is just a mask for the same darkness he has. He’s waiting for you to validate him.

Do you give him that validation to keep him talking, or do you deliver the cold truth?

A. "Maybe we are the same, Abhi. That's why I'm the only one who can save you from yourself."

B. "I'm not like you, Abhi. I chose to help people heal. You chose to watch them bleed."

C. (Smile and offer him another candy) "Eat your candy, Abhi. You'm getting worked up over a movie that ended a long time ago."

What’s the next step in your session?

here have candy let's meet again....

Abhi's POV:

I watched as you reached into your pocket and pulled out another candy. You slid it through the small, circular opening at the bottom of the plexiglass—the "food slot." It tumbled onto my side of the table, a bright, crinkling piece of sugar sitting in the middle of my sterile world.

"Here," you said, your voice as warm as a summer afternoon. "Candy."

I looked at the wrapper, then back at you. You were already standing up, smoothing your coat with that effortless grace that makes me feel like I’m glitching.

"Let's meet again," you whispered, mirroring the words from our first session, but this time they didn't sound like a threat. They sounded like a promise. Or a lure.

I didn't pick up the candy. I just stared at it. "Kyra," I called out as you turned toward the door. "Why the childhood stories? Why tell me about your mother? Is this part of the 'treatment' or... are you actually lonely?"

You didn't answer. You just gave me one last, enigmatic smile and waved a hand over your shoulder.

Thump-hiss.

The door sealed. The silence returned, but it wasn't the empty silence of five days ago. It was heavy. I picked up the candy. I didn't eat it. I just rolled it between my fingers, feeling the texture of the plastic.

For the first time since they locked me in here, I wasn't thinking about Maya’s GPS coordinates or the encryption keys to my Estonia servers. I was thinking about your cold mother. I was thinking about the girl who had no friends and how she grew up to be the woman who holds my life in her hands.

You’re playing a very dangerous game, Kyra. You’re letting me in. Or you’re making me think you are. And the terrifying part? I don't care if it's a trap. I just want to hear the rest of the story.

Kyra's POV:

You walked down the hallway, the smile dropping from your face the moment you were out of the camera’s line of sight. You checked your pocket—the digital recorder had captured everything. His admission of feeling "perfect" in the system, his confession about his father, and most importantly, his reaction to your "vulnerability."

You’ve built a bridge. Now, you just have to decide what to carry across it.

You're back in your car. Your phone buzzes. It’s a message from the lead investigator on the case: > "He's talking more to you than anyone else in ten years. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it. We need those server locations by Friday."

But then, a second message appears from an unknown, encrypted number. It’s Maya:

"I saw the footage of you talking about your childhood. Kyra... was any of that true, or are you just that good at lying?"

2 days later...